Thursday, 28 February 2013

It
had taken time to establish Mongol dominance over the expanse of Persia. The
value of Persian jewels, gold and silver as bounty was beyond calculation. In
addition border countries like Uzbekistan had also provided the Khan with more wealth.
Transporting that treasure safely back to the Karakorum , the Mongol capital,
was a major undertaking requiring much planning with many trips andsoldiers
for protection .

Once that operation was underway, Genghis Khan being both wise
and shrewd returned to his conquests of new lands. Making sure that his
army was totally organized as well as disciplined was his first priority. To ensure
that the army was thus prepared he delegated the tasks to his officers.

Subutai
was the foremost General and military strategist in Genghis Khan’s army. Like
the Great Conqueror he was born near the Onon River and had known him all his
life. As a result he was the most trusted advisor of the Mongol ruler.

Subutai
convinced Genghis Khan to lead part of his army to Afghanistan and then on to
India. Subutai with another General Jebe would take the remaining force towards
the West. He had learned much about siege weaponry from Chinese and Muslim
engineers and saw the great advantage of its utilization in battle.

So
it was that Subutai and Jebe took their troops into Persian Iraq. The nations
of Azerbaijan and Armenia were the next to fall. Later after being stymied by
the Bulgars, they headed into the Georgia where they staged a successful raid
utilizing brilliant tactics. Moving through the Caucasus Mountains Subutai and
Jebe then they targeted Russian Kiev. In a major battle there they defeated and
killed the Prince of Kiev and several other Russian princes with allied
territories.

Their
spoils were immense sending even more enormous quantities of gold, silver and
jewels to Karakorum. After securing rule over these lands and the promises of huge
annual tributes, the Generals headed back to rejoin Genghis Khan.

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Sunday, 24 February 2013

Genghis
Khan’s external victories were mounting. He had invaded and defeated the armies
of Western Xia, the Jin Dynasty, Korea and the Khanate of Kara-Khitan. He held
sway over a very large population in a huge geographic area. He chose not to
use his resources to govern and administer these lands but rather extract
enormous wealth. He had allowed many of the local leaders of each area that
submitted to him to rule, collect taxes and deliver huge annual tribute to him.
This was an offer that they could not refuse if they wished to avoid certain death.

Genghis
Khan now sought to increase trade with other empires as yet another source of
income. Consequently he sent a caravan of approximately 500 men loaded with trade
items to the Persian Empire. Ancient custom was that caravans and ambassadors
were given safe passage by foreign countries. However, the governor of the Persian
border area (now Uzbekistan) suspected them of being spies. Instead, he seized
the caravan and slaughtered the Mongols.

Genghis
Khan received word of the caravan’s fate and was enraged. Relatively unknown
outside Asia, Genghis Khan sent ambassadors directly to the Shah of Persia
demanding that the Shah turn over the official responsible for the massacre to
him. Not realizing what the repercussions would be, the Shah chose to execute
the Mongol ambassadors.

Genghis
Khan had always understood the value of good spies and indeed had some in Persia.
When they reported the Shah’s killing of his ambassadors, Genghis Khan went to
war and attacked.

At
that time the Persian Empire occupied around one million square miles. The
Mongols initially took several rich towns and cities without really penetrating
very far. Then an audacious Genghis Khan directed his generals to go after the
Shah himself in Persia. There was no stopping the path of destruction their
armies laid down on the way to their goal. Soon the Shah fled his country,
dying in exile and poverty. The immense wealth of Persia was now the property
of the Mongol ruler.

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Guardian of Genghis Khan’s Tomb” by clicking

Thursday, 21 February 2013

After
ten years of fighting in China against Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty the Mongol
army was tired. But in the earlier defeat of the Naimans in Genghis Khan’s consolidation
of the tribes into the Mongol Empire the Naiman leader Kuchlug had fled to
Western Liao. There he proclaimed himself Khanate of the Kara-Khitan taking over
a sizable area (965,255 square miles). This did not sit well with the Mongol
ruler.

Genghis
Khan believed in the principle of promotion by merit departing from the Mongol custom
of rank by inheritance. Men earned their way up the ladder by proving
themselves in battle demonstrating their intelligence, courage and skill. One
young man Jebe, nicknamed “Arrow”, had done just that.

So
Genghis Khan dispatched his General “Arrow” with just 20,000 men to invade the
land and conquer the Khanate of the Kara-Khitan . Being outnumbered “Arrow”
decided not to attack directly, but rather create internal unrest thus fomenting
a rebellion against Kuchlug. This proved to be a successful strategy weakening Kuchlug’s
hold on power. Soon Kuchlug’s army was defeated and once again he ran away.
This time the Mongols pursued and killed him.

Part
of this newly conquered territory was good for agriculture and raising
livestock thus becoming another source of the food necessary to feed Genghis Khan’s
growing army and people. Chinese coins were the currency and gold mines there provided
him more of the precious metal. Foodstuffs were plentiful and trade gave the economy a boost. But it
was taxation than gave Genghis Khan a major ongoing income stream.

Culturally there were Mongol, Turkish, Persian and other Islamic elements to the population.

Monday, 18 February 2013

Not
long after being declared Overlord of Western Xia, Genghis Khan received
emissaries from Emperor Xuan Zong of the Jin (or Jurchen) Dynasty. The Jin with
a population of 20 million had an army of 600,000 to 700,000 men. It was a
wealthy nation that controlled the trade along the Silk Road. Arrogant in his
approach the Jin Emperor demanded tribute and submission from the Mongols as
his vassals.

Genghis
Khan was not yet thinking about war again, but his people over time had suffered
much at the hands of the overbearing Jin. Plus he needed some money to provide
for his troops and grow his force. The Jin had plenty of it and used silver as
their currency Furthermore his spies had reported to him of Jin internal discord
caused by their harsh rule of conquered peoples. He knew from other intelligence
that the Jin army was busy fighting wars against the Chinese and Tanguts on
other fronts. So he prayed on it and came to his soldiers announcing that ‘Heaven
had promised him a victory’.

Approximately
seventy thousand Mongols led by Genghis Khan attacked the Jin Dynasty in 1211.
Using clever military tactics combined with a divide and conquer strategy they
were able to pillage the rural areas forcing refugees into the cities. Soon these
cities were overcrowded and were lacking sufficient food to feed everyone. As a
result the Jin troops started murdering their peasants pushing the remaining populace
towards revolt.

With
the help of Chinese and Muslim engineers the Mongols build siege engines. These
enabled them to successfully capture and sack the Jin cities. When they besieged
the Jin capital of Zhongdu (now Beijing) the Emperor agreed to give the Genghis
Khan huge amounts of gold, silver, silk and horses to avoid the same fate for
his city. Soon the Emperor moved his court away to Kaifeng. Feeling double
crossed the Mongol leader tore Zhongdu apart.

From
there he took his men deep into China raiding as they went. The spoils were
enormous and the Jin defections added to his army.

Thursday, 14 February 2013

To
comprehend Genghis Khan's wealth you must understand the full extent of his
ambition. In order to do this it would be helpful to know the chronology of his
wars. To look at this in today's terms his conquests would span 30 nations and 3+billion people.

Above
is a map of the burgeoning Mongol Empire from 1206 to 1294. Although Genghis
Khan died in 1227 and the size of the then Mongol occupied lands is shown, he
and his generals raided and plundered kingdoms well beyond that enormous
territory. It must be realized it was he who first gave Mongols the taste for
conquest and his empire that expanded for decades after his passing.

As
was mentioned earlier in order to consolidate power and create the Mongol
Confederation it was necessary for Genghis Khan to unite by conquest. He did
this by defeating the tribes such as the Merkits and the Naimans. Once this was
done he set about securing new sources of food and land for his drought plagued
people.

Genghis
Khan knew his two main rivals were Western Xia and the Jin. He wagered that the
stronger Jin would deny Western Xia any support if it was attacked. Thus he
invaded the Western Xia Dynasty of the Tangut Empire. His bet had turned out to be a good one. He had conquered the Tanguts by 1209.

Although
the Tangut population was considered nomadic it had realized the importance of
irrigation channels and had good grasslands and large cattle herds as a result.
Iron, woolen products, pottery, and porcelain were its primary economic
resources.

Equally
important was that Western Xia had within its borders the Hexi Corridor, a vital
trade route connecting North China and Central Asia at that time.

The
people of Western Xia had made strides in literature, architecture, the arts and music. All
of this was assimilated into the Mongol culture. In my next post I will discuss
Genghis Khan’s war with the Jin.

Wednesday, 13 February 2013

Can
they keep treasure hunters away from what some of them believe is an estimated
$1,000,000,000,000(one trillion dollars at today’s prices) in treasure?

In
an article from Newser-“Everyone from archaeologists to grave robbers have been
seeking Genghis Khan's tomb for the past 800 years—and now a team of techies
from California may have found it, Newsweek reports. Using satellites, radar
scans, and thousands of volunteers, Albert Lin's crew at the University of
California in San Diego have built 3-D reconstructions of a large underground
structure in northwestern Mongolia. But they won't dig it up, despite legends
of the vast treasure Khan acquired as ruler of an empire stretching from the
Pacific to the Caspian Sea. “We do not want to excavate the site,” says Lin.
“We believe it should be protected as an UNESCO World Heritage site."

The
first question is have they really found the tomb? Here’s why they think so.
Newsweek reports- "They were rewarded with the thrilling discovery of arrowheads,
ceramics, roof tiles, and bricks, suggesting human activity in the remote,
uninhabited area. “When we extended the search area and looked more closely, we
identified hundreds of artifacts scattered on the surface. We knew there must
be something significant there,” says Fred Hiebert, archeology fellow with
National Geographic and one of the other principal investigators on the
project.

When
they carbon-dated their finds, the results were exciting and full of promise,
seeming to fit around the time of Genghis’s life and death. “Material dating of
some samples indicates 13th- and 14th-century origins, though the full analysis
of data is still underway,” says Hiebert.”

If
I were them I’d be doubtful. However,
the publicity that they have received will undoubtedly attract legions of
thieves to their site. This easily could be the gravesite of one of Genghis
Khan’s four sons! Follow

Sunday, 10 February 2013

While the French,Germans, Japanese, Americans,
Russians, and Brits have all been determined to find Genghis Khan’s Tomb none
did. But no chronicle of the searches for Khan’s treasure
would be complete without discussing Maury Kravitz, a multimillionaire of
Jewish Russian heritage. Kravitz while dimly viewed by some was no slug. He had
attended the University of Illinois andThe John Marshall Law
School in Chicago. An extremely successful goldmerchant,
attorney, Army veteran and amateur historian he had done his homework over the
years. The Chicago Tribune stated “Mr. Kravitz assembled a library of more than
400 volumes on Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire”.

In the earlier 1994 Chicago Tribune story it was reported
that “his admiration for Genghis Khan grew out of his ability to overcome
obstacles to become the most important ruler of his era”. He was convinced that
the Great Conqueror had taken it with him and was buried with the most immense
treasure ever accumulated. Subsequently he spent forty years and led four
expeditions trying to get it. Maury Kravitz had carefully examined the words of a
15th century Jesuit who wrote about the details of a battle. Genghis
Khan was reported to have said that battleground near the Bruchi and Kherlen rivers
was his favorite place. Kravitz believed that was where he had chosen to be buried.

Kravitz sought out support in the person of John
Woods. The Chicago Tribune article recounted that relationship "I got a
call in early 1995 … about some cockamamie scheme to look for a burial site in
Mongolia of Genghis Khan," said John Woods, a professor of history at the
University of Chicago, adding that the call led to a lunch with Mr. Kravitz.

"Although the scheme seemed strange, he was so
magnetic that I couldn't turn away," said Woods, who soon got involved in
an effort to raise funds for an expedition. Though that early effort didn't
raise any money, Mr. Kravitz by 2000 had convinced a small group of investors
to put $1.2 million into funding expeditions over four summers.

The expedition located a grave site in Mongolia with
artifacts from Genghis Khan's time, Woods said. But the professor also said he
didn't know if it is "the right place." Woods said that if time,
money and the political climate had allowed, there were other likely sites to
explore.

Maury Kravitz died at the age of 80 in 2012. He had befriended Mongolia and its people.This blog will be continuously updated as events at the current expedition's site unfold. To get these updates free delivered to you by email simply sign up at http://forms.aweber.com/form/76/988734676.htm

Thursday, 7 February 2013

This is why I’m cautioning about premature celebration over the enthusiasm of the
current search team and their statements about the possible discovery of the
tomb.Although the reasoning of today’s team seems solid and their evidence is encouraging, below are the news reports from 2004 about another group. That joint team of Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists was mistaken.

From
China.org.cn (2004)-

Was Genghis' Tomb Been
Found?

“After
four years' work, a joint team of Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists
announced on October 4 that they had found what they believe to be the true
mausoleum of Genghis Khan (1162-1227).

The
ruins, dated to between the 13th and 15th century, were found at Avraga, around
250 kilometers east of Ulan Bator, the capital of the People's Republic of
Mongolia. Team members said that they expect the discovery to provide clues to
the whereabouts of the khan's actual burial site, which they believe may be
within 12 kilometers of the mausoleum.

There
is a preexisting mausoleum in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, rebuilt
by the government in 1954. Most historians agree that Genghis Khan died in 1227
when going out to battle in the Liupan Mountains in today's Ningxia Hui
Autonomous Region, but they do not agree on where he was buried.

The
Chinese mausoleum is located on the vast Ordos Plateau, 30 kilometers south of
Ejin Horo Banner. It comprises four palaces covering an area of over 50,000
square meters. Two huge flagpoles decorated with nine galloping steeds stand
aloft before the 26-meter-high main palace, symbolizing the Mongol's prosperity
and happiness. There is a tomb here, but it only contains the khan's personal
effects and not his actual remains.

From
the associated press-updated 10/6/2004 10:35:37 AM ET

“TOKYO
— Archaeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's palace and believe
the long-sought grave of the 13th century Mongolian warrior is somewhere
nearby, the head of the excavation team said Wednesday.

A
Japanese and Mongolian research team found the complex on a grassy steppe 150
miles east of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said Shinpei Kato, professor
emeritus at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University.

Genghis
Khan built the palace in the simple shape of a square tent attached to wooden
columns on the site at around 1200, Kato said.

The
researchers found porcelain buried among the ruins dated to the warrior's era,
helping identify the grounds, Kato said.
A description of the scenery around the palace by a messenger from
China's Southern Tang Dynasty in 1232 also matched the area, he added.”

Tuesday, 5 February 2013

The
searchers have become believers. Quoting the December 3, 2012 Newsweek article-

“A
multidisciplinary research project uniting scientists in America with Mongolian
scholars and archeologists has the first compelling evidence of the location of
Khan’s burial site and the necropolis of the Mongol imperial family on a
mountain range in a remote area in northwestern Mongolia.

Among
the discoveries by the team are the foundations of what appears to be a large
structure from the 13th or 14th century, in an area that has historically been
associated with this grave. Scientists have also found a wide range of
artifacts that include arrowheads, porcelain, and a variety of building material.

“Everything
lines up in a very compelling way,” says Albert Lin, National Geographic
explorer and principal investigator of the project, in an exclusive interview
with Newsweek.

For
800 years the Khentii mountain range, where the site is located, has been
off-limits, decreed thus by Genghis Khan himself before his death. If the
findings bear out, this will be one of the most significant archeological
discoveries in years. Using drones and surface-penetrating radar, and enlisting
the help of thousands of people to sift through satellite data and photographs,
the team has searched the mountain range, systematically photographing 4,000
square miles of landscape.

In
a laboratory at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information
Technology at University of California, San Diego, Lin and his team combed
through the massive volumes of ultrahigh-resolution satellite imagery and built
3-D reconstructions from radar scans in their search for clues to where Genghis
Khan may be buried. As part of an unprecedented open-source project, thousands
of online volunteers sifted through 85,000 high-resolution satellite images to
identify any hidden structures or odd-seeming formations.”

My
question is what is so “compelling” about this evidence? Yes more technological
resources have been utilized than ever before but what specifically links it to
the Great Conqueror? The time frame is not narrow enough to claim with
certainty that it is Genghis Khan’s whose death came in 1227. The artifacts
while of his era have not been proven to belong to him or his entourage. In
short there is no “smoking gun” proving this to be the location of the tomb.
Could it be? Yes, possibly. But other searches have also offered promising
clues but in the end came up empty. In my next blog entry I will give you an
example of just such a search! Remember click on http://forms.aweber.com/form/76/988734676.htm
to have my free blog delivered to you by email.

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Why
did Genghis Khan begin to conquer nations and accumulate vast treasures? The real reason is surprisingly simple-
Survival! The weather over time had brought drought that devastated the
grasslands of Mongolia. Farming was almost nonexistent and game was extremely
scarce. His father had been murdered when he was a small boy and their tribe
cast him and his family out. As a teen
he even killed his half-brother over food that the brother had stolen from the
family. The tribes fought over the remaining grasslands and the meager food
supplies. After coming to manhood
Temujin (aka Genghis Khan) made alliances with his father’s friends eventually
becoming the leader of their tribe. He fought on and prevailed uniting the
nation.

Still there was extreme hardship so he looked beyond the country’s
borders. First he chose to conquer states and Dynasties to the east and south.
He believed the wealth of their people had made them weak. The Mongol warriors had been toughened by a
harsh life had taken to his military training, advanced tactics, and strict
discipline

Then
he sought trade and trade partners with the leaders of rich lands along the
Silk Road only to have his caravan attacked and his ambassadors murdered. These
arrogant rulers had taken him lightly which was a huge mistake because it
enraged Genghis Khan who went on to destroy their cities and kill their people.
Genghis Khan grew up at a place and time when nothing was wasted so he stripped
these nations of everything of value! Several other western conquests followed
these wars.

From
that point more and more peoples offered their allegiance to the Mongol ruler
whose power grew daily. Soon even the enormously rich states like the Jin and
Western Xia (now part of modern day China). The spoils and plunder were immense
and were taken back to the Mongol capital. History detailed how Genghis Khan
believed gold, silver and jewels had softened the peoples that defied him and
that he slaughtered.